Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams’ scheduled return to Earth has been delayed once again due to technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft. Sunita and her fellow NASA astronaut, Butch Wilmore, are currently stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) as engineers work to resolve the problems with the Starliner.
Originally slated to spend eight days on the orbiting space laboratory, the astronauts left Earth on June 5 and reached the ISS on June 6. However, twenty days later, NASA and the Boeing leadership are still coordinating their return to Earth after the Starliner Crew Flight Test spacecraft experienced a minor helium system leak on its way.
According to a Boeing spokesperson, four of the five thrusters that were previously shutting down are operating normally. "This means only one thruster out of 27 is currently offline. This does not present an issue for the return mission," the spokesperson added.
"We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process", said NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme Steve Stich. "We are letting the data drive our decision-making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking," Stich said in a statement.
According to the US space agency, the spacecraft requires seven hours of time to perform a normal end-of-mission and it "currently has enough helium left in its tanks to support 70 hours of free flight activity following undocking".
(With IANS inputs)
